Construction of a Pallet Changer with Automatic Setup Function in Flexible Manufacturing Cells

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A flexible manufacturing cell (FMC) is a basic machining unit of a job-shop type manufacturing system. Recently, the FMC has attracted special interest as a new manufacturing unit for low-volume, variety production. In the FMC developed for this study, setup operation of a workpiece, especially centering of workpieces, is the most important and complicated operation. It is hard to automate this operation; even today, in automated job shops, centering operations are often conducted by operators.In this study, a new type of FMC with automatic setup function was designed, and an automatic setup equipment for FMC was constructed. This setup operation is automatically conducted by an industrial robot and a workpiece clamping device. This automatic setup equipment intends to free operators from complicated centering operations of workpieces and to promote complete unmanned factories. The following results were obtained from this study.1. A new type of flexible manufacturing cell was developed. The FMC is composed of an index-pallet changer, clamping stands, a loading-unloading station, and an industrial robot. The FMC has the following features:(1) An industrial robot conducts two functions: handling workpieces and measuring the position of workpieces.(2) A multiple number of clamping stands is installed on an index-pallet changer. While a workpiece is machined on one of the clamping stands by an NC machine tool or a machining center, the centering operation by the industrial robot can be conducted for workpieces on the other clamping stands which are on standby for machining. Thus, both machining and centering operations can be simultaneously processed in the FMC proposed.(3) All operations are systematically controlled by a micro-computer.2. Computer simulation of centering operation was conducted for workpieces in order to check the feasibility of correct centering operation.3. The procedure for effective use of FMC was explained with a numerical example.